Saw this on the news this morning and hope all you guys in NZ are OK

My heart goes out for the Kiwi's, Earthquakes, Mining Disasters and now a Volcano eruption, lets hope no one is hurt and this thing doesn't get any worse.

Quote from: newportnobby on August 07, 2012, 08:36:09 AM
Saw this on the news this morning and hope all you guys in NZ are OK

Just a small one by NZ standards e.g. the big bang that created Lake Taupo, which is quite large!!  Brian

It's a mere sneeze (ash-ooo)   

Actually, a mere sneeze is actually quite an accurate reflection of what happened yesterday. Tongariro is the northern most of three Volcanoes in Tongariro National Park, and also the smallest. The last time it erupted was in 1897. The others being Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. Taupo was a much bigger volcanoe in its time, but exploded quite violently in what, as far as I am aware is possibly the biggest Volcanic Eruption in history!

Being in Auckland, I am nowhere near the event, particularly with the prevailing Westerly wind. However, if it does go off, and the wind shifts Southerly (which is quite unusual), then things could get interesting.

Flights to Napier, Gisborne, Palmerston North, Whakatane, and Masterton were disrupted yesterday, Napier being cancelled all day. However, just as Air New Zealand was starting to recover, one of their subsidiary airlines Eagle Airways grounded their entire fleet of Beechcraft Raytheon 1900D's, which virtually took out all the lower level Regional Network after discovering hairline cracks in one of them. Not a good day for Aviation!

Hoping its not been very bad for any parts of NZ and alll will soon be back to normal

Quote from: kaiwhara on August 07, 2012, 05:44:06 PM
Taupo was a much bigger volcanoe in its time, but exploded quite violently in what, as far as I am aware is possibly the biggest Volcanic Eruption in history!

Probably depends what source you get the info from, but from what I can see it doesn't even rank in the top 10 

Biggest in recorded history was Mt. Tambora (Indonesia) in 1815 which frankly made the infamous Krakatoa eruption of 1883 look like a pimple being squeezed! Krakatoa only ranks number 9 and that echoed round the globe four times and caused weather havoc and crop failures worldwide! 


Paul

The below page shows the Oruanui eruption of Lake Taupo 26,500 years ago was the largest known volcanic event in the last 70,000 years, and the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences via their Geonet page confirms this. The most recent eruption 1800 years ago was the largest in the last 5000 years.

http://geonet.org.nz/volcano/activity/taupo/about.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oruanui_eruption

Wow, looks like it was a bit of an event that one! 

It's like Top Trumps this 

I did say in recorded history though, obviously there have been many far bigger eruptions back when the Earth was a more active and fiery place. Thanks for posting the links, fascinating subject volcanology.


Paul

It was in recorded history though. Both the Chinese and Romans wrote about it in the same year!

Top Trumps this all right, but thats what makes it fun 

Just goes to show New Zealand is a very interesting place in terms of both Geography and Geology!

If something the scale of the most recent Taupo Eruption were to happen nowdays, I would say that would be Bye Bye New Zealand, and hello mass famine and goodbye to a good chunk of the worlds population. The effect would be massive globally, far and away excceding Krakatoa and that horribly unpronouncible and impossible one to spell one in Iceland!

We don't do things by halves here 

Quote from: Sprintex on August 08, 2012, 07:57:51 AM
Wow, looks like it was a bit of an event that one! 

It's like Top Trumps this 

I did say in recorded history though, obviously there have been many far bigger eruptions back when the Earth was a more active and fiery place. Thanks for posting the links, fascinating subject volcanology.


Paul

At least the current volcano kindly waited until they'd finished the filming for the forthcoming Hobbit films 


Paul

Quote from: Sprintex on August 08, 2012, 12:27:23 PM
At least the current volcano kindly waited until they'd finished the filming for the forthcoming Hobbit films

If it had been more considerate it would have gone off during the end of Lord of the Rings 

Well, Mt Doom was the volcano next door, Ngauruhoe!

Quote from: kaiwhara on August 08, 2012, 06:01:56 PM
Well, Mt Doom was the volcano next door, Ngauruhoe!

Of course we all know that Lord of the Rings was a cover up... the bizarre story at the end about Gollum and the ring  that has no witnesses followed by the mysterious way Frodo was able to kick a wizards backside in the return to the shire all speak volumes

(actually there is a superb book which takes another different slant on it
http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html)

Quote from: EtchedPixels on August 08, 2012, 08:30:55 PM


Of course we all know that Lord of the Rings was a cover up... the bizarre story at the end about Gollum and the ring  that has no witnesses followed by the mysterious way Frodo was able to kick a wizards backside in the return to the shire all speak volumes

Almost as bizarre as Father Ted kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse